For my birthday last Friday, CRAFT Contributing Writer Brookelynn Morris gave me some moss and other naturey bits from her neighborhood in northern California. This may seem strange, but the only natrurey bits I can find around my neighborhood in Brooklyn involve garbage and concrete, especially this time of the year when its too cold for even the resilient plant species. I brought my moss home and promptly used the guide she posted last week about mossariums to assemble a habitat for my new green fuzzy friends in a jar from this great dish/kitchenware store in NYC, Fishs Eddy. I used the sea glass BK gave me, some sea shells, and some wine corks as the substrate to support my moss. I think it turned out great, I look forward to taking care of this low-maintenance terrarium for a long time to come. Thanks, Brookelynn! Check out the rest of the photos in my Flickr set.

Becky Stern (sternlab.org is a DIY guru and director of wearable electronics at Adafruit. She publishes a new project video every week and hosts a live show on YouTube. Formerly Becky was Senior Video Producer for MAKE. Becky lives in Brooklyn, NY and belongs to art groups Free Art & Technology (“release early, often, and with rap music”) and Madagascar Institute (“fear is never boring”).

Brookelynn

I love the corks at the bottom. Great touch! They really will help it thrive!

Becky Stern

I hope so, but today I saw a bit of mold on one of the corks. What do I do?

Brookelynn

Hmmm, This could be caused by two things I can think of. One, too much humidity- the solution would be to water less. Reduce the ammount and frequency. In my yard, the moss will stay green with just a nice coating of dew every so often. Two, if the cork had wine soaked into it, there might be sugars present that could cause the mold.
I’d say to pull all of them and try to let the jar dry out a bit. You can replace them with new corks, but try this: Soak the new corks in a solution of hydrogen peroxide and water for a day. Then let them dry out all the way before you introduce them to the jar. I’d sterilize anything you put in the jar in the same way from now on. Ya know, what, rinse that sea glass too. I pulled it right off the beach and it’s ‘prolly salty!
Keep me updated!